Prayers for Nelson Mandela bore the solemn sense of the inevitable yesterday, as the ailing former statesman spent a second night seriously ill in hospital.

Where once they prayed for his recovery, worshippers in Soweto asked simply for their beloved former President to be “released from suffering” after he was taken to hospital on Saturday suffering from pneumonia.

It was the fourth time that the 94-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate had been admitted since December, with a recurrent lung infection. Doctors said that he was in a “serious but stable” condition.

“Whether he recovers and he’s restored to health, or whether he closes his eyes for the last time, my prayer was that he is released from suffering,” said Father Sebastian Russouw, at the Regina